“there is more to this hijab than the whole modesty thing. These girls are strangers to me but I know that we all felt an amazing connection, a sense that this cloth binds us in some kind of universal sisterhood.”

“Our faces were overly close, and in that moment something more passed between us. I’d never felt this kind of thing with a guy – such a connection. I knew, in my head, that we were practically strangers; but this thing – whatever it was – made me feel known. Seen. Acknowledged and appreciated and admired.”

“In some ways we were more remote than strangers because strangers at least have the possibility of yet unmade connections.”

“Here's to our enduring sisterhood. May it bind us together more tightly that the Lycra in my Spanx underpants.”

“If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation?”

“We were as strangers, in the moment-as intimate as strangers-for strangers know more of us, and can judge of us more without reproach than ever those we love.”